Shamara and Other Stories available in Paperback
Shamara and Other Stories
- ISBN-10:
- 0810117223
- ISBN-13:
- 9780810117228
- Pub. Date:
- 12/25/1999
- Publisher:
- Northwestern University Press
- ISBN-10:
- 0810117223
- ISBN-13:
- 9780810117228
- Pub. Date:
- 12/25/1999
- Publisher:
- Northwestern University Press
Shamara and Other Stories
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780810117228 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Northwestern University Press |
| Publication date: | 12/25/1999 |
| Series: | Writings From An Unbound Europe |
| Edition description: | 1 |
| Pages: | 245 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.75(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d) |
Read an Excerpt
SHAMARA AND OTHER STORIES
(Writings from an Unbound Europe)
By Svetlana Vasilenko
Edited by Helena Goscilo
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 2000 Northwestern University Press.
Translation copyright © 2000 Northwestern University Press.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0810117223
Chapter One
Translated by Daria A. Kirjanov and
... THE AIR THERE IS LIKE A GOLDEN SCARF. LIKE THIS: YELLOW, silken, flowing in the sky like water upstream, like a plant. Tender-hot to the lips, lips like sunbaked cherries in an orchard, sweet cherries, sand on your teeth.
Golden sand. The Golden Horde was falling, fell, shattered, turned into golden sand. The river has a non-Russian name—Akhtuba.
Let's begin.
She stood on the sandy hill and danced. The tape player lay at her feet. It seemed as though she were all alone on this bank, by this river, under this May sun, as if she were dancing not for people but for the sun, waiting for the sun to praise her, to kiss her. And kissing her it was.
Suddenly, on the other bank, the armored troop carriers appeared. Languid but quick, like crocodiles, they entered the water, their snouts staring vacantly at her as she danced. They moved right toward her, overcome by lust. They moved fast, in a herd.
And the women, not visible earlier, now ran out from under the hill. Grabbing their blankets and children, they ran clumsily in bathing suits or just in underpants and bras. They ran slowly, hardly pulling their feet out of the sand, losing their scarves and dresses.
One of the carriers—the "armadillo"—flashed by, as if flirting with her.
She was dancing.
Then it turned around and went straight at her.
She was dancing.
Before reaching her, it maneuvered a little to the right and dapperly rode up next to her, almost touching her with its hot flank. She bent down. A soda bottle lay in the sand; she took it by the neck and hurled it. The bottle broke against the armor.
It stood awhile, thinking—then went at her angrily with its tail end.
It moved blindly, intending to crush her, trample her down, turn her into a wafer.
She ran along the riverbank, tossing rags under its wheels, as if this would stop it. She yelled something, shaking her fist, pleading with it; it was deaf. And when she could no longer run or walk, when she could only crawl, it caught up with her and stopped.
She lay at its feet, breathing heavily, unable to get up, as if she were booty.
And from the innards of the iron dinosaur, a soldier crawled out, up to his waist: a thin little reed with transparent eyes—a skinny albino.
He looked down at her from up high as though looking at carrion. She looked at him with wounded eyes.
He disappeared. Started the engine. Carefully drove around her.
She looked for her dress, found it. It had been torn by the wheels and was covered with oil stains. She threw it away. The tape player was intact.
She took it and walked off, unsteady on her feet.
She peeked into the window of a fishing cottage.
"Ustin! Open up!"
Silence. Fishing nets are drying in the yard.
She knocked on the door and said to it, "I love you."
Quiet. She started to beat her back against the door.
"I'll die without you! I'll die! Die!"
She moved away from the door and told it, as if it were alive, "I'll hang myself, Ustin! You understand?"
The door opened. A man walked onto the porch. He looked her up and down. He was handsome, swarthy, had a scar on the edge of his lips. He handed her a rope with a noose and said, "Anything else?"
Inside the cottage stands a trestle bed.
They lay on the bed, barely covered by the sheets. She's happy, keeps caressing him, clings to the strong body.
He says to her, "It hurts! Mm-mm-mm! Don't touch me there!"
She says to him, "You touch-me-not!" She says, "You're mine."
Her lips touch his skin. "That hurt?"
"I'm telling you—it burns!"
"Got any sour cream?"
"No."
"Kefir?"
"Yes."
She rubs his back with kefir and leans over him, chattering away. "Tomorrow I'll bring you some mink cream. Kefir's no good. And I'll bring some sour cream. Want me to?"
He lay there and lay there and then exploded. "I don't need any cream! Go away!"
"Ustin!"
"Go away!"
"I ..."
"I told you! I want you out of my sight!"
"You don't love me?"
"Who are you, anyway—a human being or what?"
"And who are you?"
"Who?"
"A jailbird!"
"What?!"
"A thug!"
He raised himself up. "Asshole," he says. "You asshole!"
She walks with the noose on her neck, holding the rope in her hand; her elbow lags behind, as if she were taking herself for a stroll. She's in her bathing suit, walking around the city, cranking up the tape player.
The men at the beer stall call her over. "Come 'ere, we're all gonna chip in to get you a dress!"
Ugly red mugs. But kind. They're laughing. Everybody's laughing, even the buses.
She walks and sobs over the whole city. Naked, with a noose around her neck, her player blasting.
And suddenly she hears:
"Shamara!!!"
The town jester, Lera the buffoon, runs toward her, running across the street like an idiot, at an idiotically breakneck speed, and behind him seven dogs, seven huge mongrels just as bad as Lera himself. Lera took off his shirt and flung it over her shoulders.
She squats in the middle of the sidewalk and weeps.
"He doesn't love me!" she tells the dogs.
The dogs lick her face.
Shamara sits on the balcony of the fifth floor of a five-floor apartment building. She sits on a barrel and trims her toenails, gathering the clippings into a pile.
"I'm gonna throw up right now!" someone says.
Shamara looks around. Lena is standing in the doorway, round like a ball. Her hair curlers whistle in the wind.
"Throw what?"
"Huh?"
"Throw what up?"
Lena shouts imploringly, "Now she's making fun of me! Why, if I find just one of your claws—"
"Toenails—"
"Claws ... you don't have toenails, you have claws.... And if they get into the food—"
"Into the soup ... tomorrow I'll sprinkle some—"
"Then I'll—"
"You'll eat it. It won't kill you."
Stukalkina and Dolbilkina crawled out onto the balcony: one has black hair, the other red; both are called Galya. They've got chemicals in their hair: one has black chemicals, like a jackdaw. The other has red chemicals, like henna shampoo.
"Get off our barrel!"
"Say the magic word and I'll get off."
Stukalkina and Dolbilkina are from the villages Dolbilkino and Stukalkino.
Stukalkina and Dolbilkina take the board, with Shamara on top of it, and lift it. Shamara sits on the board like the Shah of Persia. Lena takes some pickles out of the barrel.
"Galya, oh, my Galya," sings Shamara, alighting between the two Galyas.
They put the board back and leave.
"Stupid village hicks!" she shouts after them.
She took a handful of toenail clippings and sprinkled them off the balcony like salt. "Here, chick, chick, chick...."
She looked down.
Lera was sitting on a shop bench with some youths. Their faces and shirts were like fruit candy, sweet and gentle. Lera was singing in a low bass to the accompaniment of a guitar. "I'm weeping, I'm sobbing, my dearest!"
A girl approached the entryway. She was so virginal. She walked right into the circle; the gentle youths surrounded her. She's fallen into a pink and blue trap.
They grabbed her breasts, her waist, her legs, their eyes shining with tenderness and purity, and it was impossible to escape from the circle. At first the girl smiled, then she stopped; her tortured smile congealed on her lips, as if from frost, and with this tortured, awkward smile on her face, she started to hit their hands. And their tender gazes also froze; their tender faces hardened. They tossed her around, and Lera sang, rocking out in imitation of Presley:
"Rock 'n' roll, rock 'n' roll!"
They danced. From afar, it was even beautiful.
Dolbilkina and Stukalkina ran out of the entryway—they were late for work—stopped, shook out their curls, and ran on.
Lena emerged next. And then another woman, with a big belly, followed. They were about to run right by her. But the one with the belly, her face like a Madonna's, only with eyeglasses, stopped and said to Lera, "Let her go!"
Lera made a sweeping gesture over the guitar strings: thwang! He asked affectionately, "Marin, what's the point of going through with the pregnancy? You willing to have a caesarean?"
Marina moved off, looking back over her shoulder. Lera entered the circle and patted the girl's shoulder in a fatherly way.
"Good for you! The thermal treatment's over!" And loudly, but as if it were meant only for her, he said, "I'm half woman myself—a big, big secret! And with this half I understand you so well! A woman's soul! Hurt feelings! How well I understand! Walk right through! You're free!"
And he ordered, "Attention!"
The boys came to attention, and she walked through the ranks, who smiled at her tenderly.
Only the last boy blocked her way, gently bleating, "O little cherry, whom do you want?"
The girl said, "What a nursery school!" and she walked off on her long legs.
The boys watched her with heavy eyes.
"Shamarina"—the superintendent walks up the five-floor mountain, panting heavily at each landing, and casting stones with each word—"is a whore. She should be in jail. Her husband works here in the chemical division. Don't get involved with her. She's a disgrace to the whole dormitory. Be careful with her. This apartments a model of maintenance. Okay, that's it. You go the rest of the way yourself; tell her you're new. The girls are working their shift. Remember. Now, me—I'm afraid of her. She can easily cut your throat...."
"What are you saying, Rimma Sergeevna! You mean me?"
Shamara was standing in the doorway. So affectionate, so gentle, she was. The superintendent gasped and went downstairs.
Shamara asked the new girl, "You new here?"
She offered her hand, smiling in a gentle, flattering way, "Zinaida Petrovna," and added, "'Greetings, and you should use the name more often.'"
She took the new girl into the room and showed her the bed she'd be using. There were four beds in the room. Over one of them, Lenka's, hung a portrait—a photo half the size of the wall.
Zina said, "That's her squeeze."
A nail protruded above Shamara's bed, and on the nail hung a noose—the same one.
Only one bed in the other room, the walls covered with certificates instead of wallpaper.
"We've got a star worker here—Raya lives like she's in paradise."
She showed her the whole apartment, like a hostess receiving a long-awaited guest. But her crazy eyes kept flaring strangely and wildly. In the kitchen she lazily pulled out a drawer, suddenly grabbed a fork, and brought it up it to the new girl's throat.
"Two strokes—eight holes!" She stared hard at her.
"So?" said the other.
"I can bend a steering wheel," said Shamara and bent the tin fork with her hand.
And she instantly cheered up.
"Get to know Shamara! Be Shamara's pal! Shamara's been through everything: fire and the water of life. Shamara's been everywhere. And everywhere there's bosses. But Shamara needs freedom. I'm chasing after freedom, and freedom's running away from me, the bitch. I'll catch up to it!"
"There's inner freedo—," the new girl said shyly.
Shamara flew into a rage, grabbed the new girl by the collar, and shook her like a pear. "You finished high school, you ugly mug, and now you want freedom! Where do you think you've come? You've come to the chemical division! Get your glasses on—we only got convicts working here, stupid. Maybe you think you're gonna read books here? Hey, if I see you with a book.... If I want to, I'll have you thrown off the commuter train; if I want to, I'll have them wind you up in elastic fiber at the factory. If I want to, they'll be selling pastry at the train station stuffed with you instead of fruit jam. They'll cut you up into little pieces and squeeze you and your glasses through the meat grinder. Get it?"
"That's enough!" said the new girl and pushed Shamara away as easily as could be. She was ever so light, it turns out.
They sat on the beds, breathing heavily. They stared at each other like enemies.
Suddenly Shamara smiled gently, cajolingly. "Hey, don't be stingy, give me your pants for the dance. The ones you're wearing."
As the girl undressed, Shamara examined her keenly. "Your undies import or export?" she asked.
"What?"
"I'm asking what's your name."
"Natasha."
Natasha was sleeping. And in her sleep she heard the door slam shut, then heard Shamara whisper in the dark.
"If anyone rings, don't open the door. I'll hide on the balcony."
She rushed in the darkness toward the balcony. And immediately a terrifying din resounded—instead of the doorbell ringing, the door was simply removed. The beam of a flashlight slashed over Natasha, in her face, her eyes.
"Get up! Who are you? A new girl? Where's Shamara? Talk to me!"
She's silent, enchanted by the guy's face, visible in the golden rays of the flashlight. Proud, swarthy, light eyed, a scar on his cheek—just like in the movies, like in the movies....
"Where's Shamara? Tell me!" And he goes to the balcony door. Natasha doesn't know who he is, only that she has to save Shamara. She gets up, stands there in her nightshirt, and the guy approaches her, and she backs away, but he keeps coming closer. They move around the room, circling; his flashlight trembles, she can see now in the moonlight—the sky's cloudless, the night's blue-black—how handsome he is; and who is he, and how's Shamara doing? The chairs are scattered all around, something's getting smashed to pieces, and she sees that he sees Shamara on the balcony, Shamara's head is visible. Shamara's in the barrel, sitting there and trembling, and Natasha leads the guy away, drawing him away with her movements, and he follows, laughing, understanding everything, but obediently following her into the other room, and laughing with his beautiful mouth, the scar just above his lips. And Natasha doesn't know what's next—what's next is the wall, the wall with the certificates, Raya lives like she's in paradise, and she asks, "Where did you get the scar?"
She merely thought the words, but her lips exhaled them, and he heard.
"From over there," he says. "From over there."
And for some reason he takes out a knife, the blade shining, and he puts it to her throat.
"From where? You interested? Yeah? I'm a chemical worker. Ever heard of those? Heard of 'em, little chickadee? Two years in the chemical division for nothin'. I'm doin' time in jail. Stocking fiber. You have stockings on? Aha, no stockings. Well, then, fiber for stockings, so your little legs don't freeze. You hear me? I'm telling you—so your legs don't freeze. This one girl walked around without stockings, and her little legs almost froze. And why d'ya think her little legs came so very close to freezing? She was being r-a-a-a-ped. Eight guys. Nice, huh? I'm asking you, wasn't that nice? Answer me. You're scared. You're scared right now, scared of a little knife...."
And with a mocking smile he kisses her without removing the knife.
"You're scared, still never been kissed. She'd never been kissed either. We did her, all eight of us. In the snow. Those little legs, those little legs, I tell you. Then into the cellar, on the hot pipes, we warmed up her legs—you hear?—so she could make it home on her own two little legs. We're animals, but hey, we warmed them.... You hear?"
She heard his voice choke up.
And at that moment Lera's thin, penetrating voice broke into song in the street:
"When she was just a kid, still a gal,
But branded with a nickname foul,
He had his fun, then dumped the 'whore,'
And married a 'nice girl,' who suited him more."
The guy glanced at Natasha as though he'd regained his senses. He ran his finger along her lips.
"But you—you're beautiful," he said. Then, with a smirk, "Nice."
He left, shouting, "Say hi to Shamara!"
Shamara was sitting in the barrel. The water in the barrel was silvery from the moonlight. Shamara's head looked as though it lay upon a silver platter.
She crawled out noisily, flinging off some dill.
"These girls have got a kolkhoz going here, a village...." She took a few steps, and almost fell. "Damn! ... Will you rub my legs? They're frozen for some reason...."
Natasha rubbed Shamara's legs with vodka. Shamara kept wincing.
"Those idiots put ice in the barrel...."
"Who was that?" asked Natasha.
"Ustin. That hurts!"
Natasha kept quiet for a while. She felt ashamed to ask, but finally did so, anyway.
"What was he after?"
"I really laid into this babe at the dance. He got really mad. But you don't dance with other people's husbands! He's my husband!"
"Who?"
"Ustin."
"Husband?"
"Yeah."
Suddenly Natasha said, "Handsome."
She lifted her eyes to Shamara.
"Yeah," Shamara said proudly.
They looked at each other.
In the morning, right at daybreak, the workers stormed the bus as if it were the Winter Palace.
Lena shoved Marina forward with her stomach.
"Let a pregnant woman get through!"
"Hey, maybe I'm pregnant, too, just not showing yet!" What a creep of a guy.
Everybody was dragged into the bus.
Dolbilkina stood in the front, looking for Stukalkina. "Galya! Galya!"
Stukalkina was in the back, looking for Dolbilkina. "Galya! Galya!"
Each of them had saved a place for the other.
Shamara was swept away toward one door, Natasha toward another. They were squeezed in tight. The bus took off.
Natasha buried her nose in someone's chest. It was uncomfortable. She lifted her head: Ustin. His lips were incredibly close. On the edge of his lips—the scar. The bus turned, jolting the passengers. Ustin and Natasha leaned with the crowd to the right, then to the left, but their faces stayed right next to each other.
Shamara watched them from a distance. People got in her way, blocking her view. But she went on watching, nonetheless, right through all the shoulders and heads. They kept riding and riding through the morning city, through the poor, gray city, with the concrete walls of its factories, walls that were like a never-ending fence, and they rode past the garages, past the rusty pipes and dump heaps, they rode through the steppe. She watched as they looked at each other, and there was no end to this torture.
They looked at each other and kept riding, riding, looking into each other's eyes—and there was no end to this happiness.
Then everybody got out of the bus, four people staying. Ustin stayed. Shamara hid behind a seat. They took off. Ustin sat there, eyes closed.
The bus idled at the last stop. Through the window Shamara watched Ustin get out, and all the others suddenly seemed to look alike as soon as they got out. Nearby, a column of convicts from the camp walked past on their way to work. It was like the beginning of a new city on the outskirts of town. Ustin took his place in the column. An officer walked up to him and said something. Ustin answered. The officer said something else. Ustin answered. And the officer hit Ustin so hard in the face that Ustin almost fell over, breaking his fall with his hand. He got up, wiped himself off. The little reed of an officer was that skinny albino.
Dressed in black overalls, Shamara ran around the factory shop chasing "cradles"—metal bins full of spools—up and down the conveyor. She chased one cradle in a fury, as if going to combat with it. Everything in the shop, except for Shamara, was white, and everything wound thread. Synthetic fiber.
She saw Natasha—standing with her back to her, stupid fool, talking with someone—and with all her strength hurled a cradle right at her. The cradle rushed thunderously along at a terrifying speed. Natasha looked around and started to laugh at something, without noticing the cradle.
Time slowed down, then started to flow ever so slowly. For Shamara. But one can outrun time. Shamara runs after the cradle, pushes Natasha, catches the cradle with her hand just as it reaches Natasha's back. The cradle makes a metallic grinding sound, falls, and smashes into smithereens. Then a second, and a third. The conveyor's still turned on. Spools pour out of the cradles.
People dressed in white suddenly appear and bend down over Natasha and Shamara. They're yelling something---can't hear a thing. Only by their lips could you tell they're swearing: F—ing s—t!
Shamara asks Natasha something, but you can't hear. She keeps saying the same thing over and over. When they disconnect the conveyor, you can finally hear.
"You alive, Natasha? Are you alive?" she keeps repeating.
Stukalkina and Dolbilkina lift Natasha up. Shamara gets up on her own. And Raya the foreman—her braid coiled like a crown on her head—hits Shamara in the face with all her might. Shamara almost fell over, breaking her fall with her hand. She got up, wiped herself off.
There's a wedding in the dormitory. The pregnant Marina and Pashka are getting married. Pashka's small, shorter than Marina by a head, with hair red as rust.
Above the drunken din, he yells, "Hey, everybody—I'm off the sauce! Ya hear?!"
Downing a glass of mineral water, he gapes, "That's strong fuckin' stuff! Narzan! Ya hear?! This ain't no Narzan—it's crap! Some bitter shit, huh? Shout 'Bitter,' you assholes! You all came just to chow down, or what?" And he pressed close to Marina's aloof white face. And above the top of his head, Shamara saw Marina's eyes, big and nearsighted, therefore estranged and absent from the wedding.
Shamara was sitting at the table with Ustin—right beside him, as befits a husband and wife. Stukalkina and Dolbilkina had seated Lera between them, and were both catering to him; as if he were a true, fair maiden, they made sure their three plates were laden. Lena and Kolya were sitting together, with his portrait—half the size of the wall—behind him.
Across from Shamara and Ustin sits Natasha.
"You aren't drinking anything?" Ustin asked her. He wanted to pour her some vodka, but she covered the shot glass with her hand.
"Ugh, I can't take it! He's being so formal with her," Shamara says to no one in particular. "Next thing you know, he'll be calling her Miss Natasha! Miss Natasha, what'll you be having, ma'am? Don't you guzzle vodka, ma'am?"
"I don't drink vodka," says Natasha.
"Not like a real Russian girl," says Shamara.
"What about champagne?" asks Ustin.
Before Ustin can even pour the champagne, Lena snatches the bottle from his hand.
"Give it here! Kolya, put a kopek in!"
"What for?"
"Put it in!"
"Hey, what's all this about?" Natasha asks, getting excited.
"When it fills up, we'll get married—it's an omen. Pasha! Where's your bottle of kopeks? You gotta break it! For luck!"
"Marin?" asks Pashka.
"We've got one," Marina answers in embarrassment.
"What d'ya mean? I broke it. Didn't have enough for the hair of the dog."
"I filled up another one...."
"That's a wife for you!" yells Pashka and grabs her breasts. "Look! Everybody, look! My wife, the big milk machine! Bring the bottle, we'll break the friggin' hell out of it!"
Natasha is jotting something down in her notebook.
"What are you writing in there?" Shamara asks her. "What're you writing?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from SHAMARA AND OTHER STORIES by Svetlana Vasilenko. Copyright © 2000 by Northwestern University Press. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Table of Contents
| Editor's Acknowledgments | IX |
| Editor's Introduction: Zone, Ozone, Blood, and Ascending Hope | XI |
| Shamara | 3 |
| Piggy | 59 |
| The Gopher | 78 |
| Going after Goat Antelopes | 80 |
| Poplar, Poplar's Daughter | 120 |
| Little Fool | 123 |